The faux outrage that is permeating the main stream media over the firing of James Comey as Director of the FBI, should serve as an abject lesson in fake news for the Fourth Estate. Unfortunately, the breathless coverage and over-the-top analysis will continue because the MSM is, in fact, acting as a branch of the opposition party.
As Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal has pointed out, the only places it seems to be big issue is in the Beltway-East Coast-West Coast triangle that believes it speaks for the country. Several polls taken since the controversy broke have indicated what Noonan indicated — that much of America isn’t as apoplectic over the firing as those who cover the news.
As we enter the second week of coverage, the adjectives used to describe the incident have been a lesson in hyperbole. William Randolph Hearst, who knew a thing or two about fake news, would be proud. On CNN we had Jeffrey Toobin, the resident legal expert, call the firing a “Constitutional crisis,” and “something that happens in dictatorships.”
However, if Toobin and his colleagues had looked at their own coverage just days or weeks before, they would read or see that they themselves had said that firing Comey would not only not provoke a Constitutional crisis, it would be well within the purview of the President. In fact, the Justice Dept. under which the FBI is located, is part of the Executive Branch. So much for usurping the Constitution.
But the egregious coverage was also pock-marked with blazing headlines about Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein threatening to quit after his memo to President Trump was made public and he was “thrown under the bus.” We found out that was a lie. Then there was the story that Trump asked for unquestioned loyalty, which turned out to be untrue. Then there was the coverage that said the entire issue was concocted to end the investigation into Russia’s influence in the November election.
It didn’t take much to show that investigations in the FBI or elsewhere are not predicated on, nor do they take their day-to-day direction from the head of any given agency. The investigation will continue apace.
What wasn’t covered by the MSM was the fact that Senators Grassley and Feinstein, one the Republican Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the other the Democratic Ranking Member on the same committee, confirmed they were in the meeting wherein Comey indicated the investigation is not looking into President Trump. That seemed to get under the radar, though it was said in open session.
And this all centers on the Trump-Russian connection that the MSM and Democrats have been trying to find for months. Did Russia try to influence the election? Sure. Has the United States tried to interfere with Russian elections? Yes. That is the reason Vladimir Putin hated Hillary Clinton. Does that interference rise to affecting vote counts in the various states? No. Russia would have had to hack into every state’s election data bank, and no evidence of that exists so far.
The issue boils down to the inability of the Democratic Party and its allies in the press to come to terms with November’s election results. While there have been no crimes committed in the election by Trump or his staff as posited by Democrats, we do know of several crimes committed Clinton and her staff.
She did violate federal law with an illegal home-brewed server. She did use unsecured devises while doing business as Secretary of State, she did print out and receive classified information as did her staff.
We do know of those crimes, among others. But, the MSM and Democrats are more interested in trying to delegitimize the Trump administration. What they are finding out is the public, thus far, is not interested in, nor concerned with, the Comey firing any more than it was with the other controversies.
What we have seen, however, is that the opposition that was supposed to be in power, is so unused to losing and so enraged by its rejection, that it is willing to sacrifice the republic and its institutions in order to get its way.
So far, the public is tuning it all out.